The 42nd Parallel
42nd Parallel, The,novel by Dos Passos, published in 1930. It is the first of the trilogy U.S.A. (collected 1938), including 1919 (1932) and The Big Money (1936). Interspersed in the narrative are brief biographies of Debs, Burbank, Haywood, Bryan, Minor Keith, Carnegie, Edison, Steinmetz, and La Follette. (For critical discussion, see Dos Passos.)
Fainy (“Mac”) McCreary, imbued with social idealism by his uncle Tim O'Hara, works for a book distributing company whose proprietor defrauds him. With a socialist friend he bums across the continent, works for an anarchist printer in San Francisco, edits an I.W.W. paper, marries, deserts his wife and children, and goes to Mexico with a revolutionist.
J. Ward Moorehouse, son of an Ohio station agent, becomes a shrewd, ruthless trader, marries and moves to Paris with Annabelle Strang, divorces her, and enters Pittsburgh journalism and advertising. He marries a steel heiress,...
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